“Here we go.” Ashley smiles down at us as she sets our food down. “Is there anything else I can get you?”
“We’re good,” I tell her. “Thanks.”
Daisy laughs and I glance up to see Ashley glaring at her. What the fuck.
“Girl, please. I have no designs on him. He seems to think I don’t eat enough and I was hungry.”
“Uh…I am right here you know.”
“I know.” She winks and picks up her fork. “Now eat so I can finish looking for a job before it gets too late. I still have homework to do.”
I watch as Ashley walks off. Why are girls so territorial? Even when the man doesn’t belong to them?
“Eat up, buttercup. Time’s a wasting.”
“I thought you decided we were here to talk out why I had a shit day.”
“We did that. You’re under too much stress. You’re not having fun and when you get the fun sucked out of something you love, then you stop doing it as well. Simple.”
Fuck, it is as simple as that. How did she figure it out so fast?
She nudges my plate with her fork. “Eat so we can go.”
“Fine, but I want to show you something. You said yourself you’re having no luck finding a job today, so don’t argue.”
“What do you want to show me?”
Smiling, I dig into my food, ignoring her suspicious glare. Maybe I can’t tell her why I love hockey, but I can show her.
For the first time in months, I’m smiling when it comes to the sport I’ve dedicated my life to.
“Eat up, buttercup.” I throw her words back at her. “You're in for a treat.”
She doesn’t look like she believes me, but I don’t care. She’ll love the ice as much as I do.
CHAPTER 6
Daisy
“Absolutely not!”
Hutch sighs dramatically, but I’m determined. He isnotbuying me skates. These things are like five hundred bucks. I can’t afford that and I don’t think he can either, but he’s as determined as I am. The sales guy has been laughing for the last five minutes without the good grace to at least turn away when he does it.
“You have to have skates to get on the ice.” He takes on this mulish expression that just makes the sales guy cackle louder.
“I can rent a pair.”
He looks like I told him he had to eat tofu for the rest of his life.
“That’s how people end up with broken bones. Skates have to be molded to your feet properly which means you try them until you find the right pair. If you rent a pair,” he spits out the word “rent” like it’s a dirty work, “then you end up with a pair that doesn’t fit right. And that’s how you get hurt on the ice.”
“I’m only going to wear them once,” I try to reason with him. “Why would either of us spend this kind of money on something I will never put on again?IfI put them on to begin with. I’m not sure I want to get on the ice.”
“You do.” He nods like its gospel and all but pushes me to sit down on the little wooden stool. “It’s like nothing you’ve ever done.”
“I don’t get the appeal of freezing my ass off.”
“You’re from West Virginia. Doesn’t it get cold there?”
